The Miser of Cherry Hill

by Scott Mackay

  ‘Maybe there was a fight first, and he got knocked to the ground.’

  ‘There’s no evidence of contusions or bruises.’

  Stanley shook his head. ‘What about the flask?’

  I paused. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If the robber shot Purcell from a rooftop or window, do you think he would have time to get down to the street to rob him of the flask before other people came along?’

  My shoulders sank. ‘No. He wouldn’t.’

  He motioned at the Henry round standing on the table in front of him. ‘And you found this bullet in the back alley.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘So Swinford is right.’

  ‘Not necessarily. Not with the wound angle the way it is. It just means we don’t have the proper explanation for the flask or the bullet yet.’

  We both puzzled over these discrepancies for a few moments.

  Then the sheriff asked, ‘Anything else taken from the victim?’

  ‘No. Just the flask.’

  ‘Not his watch? Not his card case?’

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  Stanley’s brow rose. ‘Ain’t that peculiar?’ He tapped the basswood table, thinking. ‘Maybe I’ll send Ray around to the Purcell place, and over to the club as well, to see if Purcell left his flask in either of them two places. Maybe Purcell left it somewhere. And if he did, it would make things a lot simpler. Might as well try to eliminate the possibility of a robbery so we can get a better idea of where the shot really came from.’

  ‘I can see why they made you sheriff.’

  We lapsed into silence for a few seconds.

  Then I shifted the conversation back to Billy. ‘You’ve lived in Fairfield a lot longer than I have, Stanley. You wouldn’t happen to know if Billy Fray owns a Henry, would you?’

  ‘So you’re really thinking Billy?’

  ‘Right now I am.’

  ‘Good. Because I really don’t think Albert Swinford has anything to do with it. As for Billy, I’m not rightly sure what kind of rifle he owns. I know his grandfather fought in the Civil War, and that Henry rifles were popular with Union soldiers back then, and that Isaiah Fray left a lot of junk in the smithy when he died. He could have left a Henry.’ The sheriff glanced at me. ‘You checked the smithy for it earlier this morning when you went looking for Billy?’

  ‘I did. No rifle, no ammo.’

  Stanley lifted the bullet and pondered. ‘Maybe he’s keeping it at the Fairfield Shooters Club.’ The sheriff rubbed his mustache a few times and put the bullet back down. ‘If you can’t find Billy to ask, why not talk to Perry Nolan, the president of the Shooters Club? I know Billy goes to the range a lot. Perry might know what rifle Billy uses. He might even have Billy’s rifle in the gun locker there.’

  I felt some optimism. ‘I’ll do that, Stanley. You wouldn’t happen to know if anybody else might be angry at Ephraim Purcell, would you?’

  Stanley thought. ‘I wouldn’t think so. He employs just about half the town, and most of them are grateful for their jobs.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘But now that I think of it, there was one incident back in October. Something I was directly involved with. Mind you, I don’t believe for a minute it has anything to do with this here shooting.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Do you know Daisy Pond?’

  I searched my memory. ‘Any relation to Orville Pond, the cement works owner?’

  ‘His daughter. She also happens to be good friends with Marigold Reynolds. She was up visiting Marigold on Cherry Hill Road back in October, and I guess there was some kind of dispute with the old man, and the upshot was, he hit the girl.’

  ‘Hit Daisy?’

  ‘Yes. And hit her hard. Right in the mouth. She was bleeding. She came down here and was madder than all get-out. I’d never seen an angrier young woman. She wanted to press charges. She didn’t care how rich he was. She said he couldn’t go around hitting defenseless young women. And she’s got a point.’

  ‘What came of it?’

  Stanley raised his brow. ‘I was getting ready to ride up to arrest the man when he comes down to the Sheriff’s Office, and he’s got his lawyer, Ambrose Johnstone. Mr Pond is with them, and he’s brought his daughter back down. Orville Pond is nervous, and he tells me how Daisy doesn’t want to press charges after all. Course, I’ve got to do something, so I talk to Judge Norris, and he’s nervous about it, too, and we finally decide to throw Purcell in jail for five days. He makes bail in a day. Later on I learn Orville Pond was in negotiations with Purcell to provide concrete for the warehouse Purcell plans to build on North Railway. I also learn that Purcell is the judge’s number-one campaign contributor. Both the judge and Mr Pond wanted to bury the matter. It sure did make Daisy mad.’

  Before riding back to the surgery, I stopped by the funeral home.

  Edmund Wilson had recovered the bullet for me, and had it ready in an old embalming fluid jar.

  ‘It’s in fairly good shape, doc. I can see the lands and grooves well.’ He held up the jar and had a closer look at the slug. ‘That’s a mighty big piece of lead.’

  He handed the jar to me and I had a look. ‘Definitely a rifle.’

  I made one more early-morning stop before returning to the surgery, the Fairfield Newspacket, where I spoke to Ira Connelly, the editor-in-chief.

  He was an eager young man in grey flannels, a grey vest, and a white shirt. His hair was slicked back with pomade, and his face was clean-shaven in the modern way.

  His eyes became hungry, and he quickly snatched his notebook and pencil from his desk as I gave him the preliminary details about the Purcell murder case.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you, doc. I knew either you or the sheriff would show up sooner or later. And thanks for coming early. We’ve been holding the morning edition. I think we’re going to sell a lot of papers today.’

  ‘Just make sure you let the town know Mr Purcell’s business concerns won’t be affected.’

  After I finished at the paper, I rode over to the Grand Hotel and had another look around.

  I climbed the stairs to the fifth floor, then the final set of iron steps to the roof. I pushed the door open and went outside.

  I found myself on a broad flat roof with a tar base and pebble surface. The brick walls of the façade went up to my hip, a perfect spot to lean a rifle against. The big electric hotel sign rose above that.

  I walked to the edge and looked down at Fairfield. The river meandered past the Cattaraugus Cemetery out beyond the Green. The silver steeple of Fairfield Congregationalist Church rose off to the left, a cross on top, taller than any other structure in town. I heard a train rumbling through Hoopertown, the town’s poorer section, and saw a plume of black smoke racing along behind the buildings along North Railway, the locomotive unseen until it crossed Tonawanda Road to the south.

  Certainly the angle was right.

  But Stanley had a point about the flask robbery.

  How could a man intent on robbing Purcell of his flask get all the way down to the street from here before other people got to the scene first?

  The flask was turning into a big puzzle.

  Especially because it was a law of the universe, according to Edmund Wilson, that Purcell always carried it about with him.

  When I got back to the surgery a little before eight, Miss Gregsby, in uniform for her first full day of work, was waiting for me on the side stoop, a shawl around her shoulders and a scarf over her head.

  ‘Good morning, Dr Deacon,’ she called.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Gregsby,’ I called back, doffing my hat as I rode up on Pythagoras.

  We spent a little time discussing the events of the previous evening.

  ‘I was so sorry I couldn’t do more for Mr Purcell,’ she said.

  I showed her around the surgery and told her what she might expect during a typical day of practice on Culver Street.

  ‘As for remaining at the hotel, I insist you come here until you find a place of y
our own. I’ve got plenty of room in this big old house, and you could save yourself some money.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly impose, doctor.’

  ‘Yes, you could.’ For I couldn’t stand the thought of her having to live alone in a hotel another minute longer, maybe because she reminded me so much of Emily. ‘There’s a spare room at the front. I’ll have Munroe lay a fire and make the bed. And I’ll send for your things at the Grand.’

  She looked at me closely. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. We’re professional colleagues, and I’m extending a professional courtesy.’

  I spent a pleasant morning with Miss Gregsby seeing patients, and by lunch I wondered why I hadn’t hired a nurse sooner. I was relieved to see she knew everything about basic – and advanced – examination, and that she was a scrupulous note-taker. Also,-whenever either of my two exam rooms displayed the least untidiness, she was in them with a quick step to set things right. In-addition, having not had a woman in the house since Emily had died, I found myself susceptible to her female presence. As a nurse she was courteous, professional, cheerful, pleasant, and thorough. As a woman, she was captivating.

  Yet every so often I saw melancholy in her eyes. I knew she was thinking of the friend she had lost. It put me in mind of my own Emily, and made me feel closer to Miss Gregsby, and as if we had made the same sad journey, and had completed the same sorrowful passage.

  It being cold and flu season, we were busy all day and had a full schedule of patients until well into the afternoon.

  When we were finished, Miss Gregsby said, ‘Let me do your charting.’

  As I discovered that her handwriting was much neater than mine, I surrendered the job to her willingly and let her record the medical happenstances of the day in a script that was so square and regular it was close to what a typesetter might find in his upper and lower cases.

  Freed up in this way for the last few hours of the afternoon, I pinned my deputy’s badge back to my chest and once again turned my attention to the Ephraim Purcell murder case.

  NINE

  On my way to the Fairfield Shooters Club to ask Perry Nolan about Billy’s Henry rifle, I saw that work had been finished on Flannigan’s Stationery Shop, and that any miscreant tacks had now been removed from the thoroughfare. At least I didn’t have to worry about getting a painful poke in my toe again.

  I rode over to the west end of town and soon reached my destination.

  The Shooters Club was a long narrow building on Riverside Drive and Allegheny Avenue, sound-proofed, with seven ranges. I tied Pythagoras to the hitching post and went inside. Rifle and gun reports assaulted my ears the moment I opened the door. It reminded me of San Juan Hill, one of the more harrowing moments of action I’d seen in Cuba a number of years back. At the far end, I saw the main office, where Perry Nolan, the club president, sat in a derby and vest receiving dues from a member, a ledger-book in front of him. He looked up and gave me a nod, then continued with his transaction.

  As I waited, I looked at various trophies in glass cabinets along the wall, and at group photographs, one showing the women’s contingent of the Fairfield Shooters Club, damsels in shirtwaists, skirts, and beribboned boaters, posing like a gang of powdered and perfumed ruffians with rifles, shotguns, and pistols. In this group photograph I was interested to see Marigold Reynolds wielding a rifle. As she was close to the deceased, it was of course a detail I couldn’t ignore, and so took out my notebook and jotted the discovery down.

  Mr Nolan finally completed his business and came out to greet me.

  He was roughly my own age, forty-one-or-two, with a neatly trimmed mustache, mild blue eyes, and an engaging helpful smile. ‘Howdy, doc. I see Stanley’s got you wearing that star again.’

  I nodded. ‘And in fact, I’m here in my capacity as deputy to ask a few questions, Mr Nolan. In regard to the Purcell murder case.’

  He grew appropriately solemn. ‘I read about the murder in the morning edition of the Newspacket today. I’ll do whatever I can to help. Mr Purcell was a generous member of this club.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Nolan. Your cooperation is much appreciated.’ I came to my chief point of inquiry. ‘I understand that Billy Fray is a member of the club.’

  The club president corrected me. ‘An associate member. He’s never had the money to pay the full annual fee. In fact, he’s never paid any fee. But he’s such a good shot we let him use the range. In return, he teaches the ladies how to shoot.’

  This was interesting news, considering the long-range dynamics of the shooting last night. ‘A good shot, was he? How good?’

  ‘One of the best we have.’

  ‘And did he own his own rifle, Mr Nolan? Or did he rent one from the range?’

  He gave me a cautious look. ‘Say, doc, is Billy a suspect?’

  I circumlocuted. ‘The young Mr Fray had his differences with Mr Purcell. We have to look into them. I’m counting on your discretion, Mr Nolan.’

  He considered this, then said, ‘Of course, doc.’

  ‘So did he rent?’

  Nolan shook his head. ‘He hardly had the money to rent. He and his pa were in pretty bad straits. He actually used his grandfather’s old rifle whenever he came to the range. A Henry. He kept it in the gun locker here.’

  I was thunderstruck by my apparent luck. ‘And is the weapon in the locker now?’ For if it was, I could subject it to the relatively new science of ballistics and test-fire it on the spot to see if I had a match to the bullet recovered from Mr Purcell’s corpse, and be done with the case in less than twenty-four hours.

  But it turned out it wasn’t going to be that easy.

  A furrow came to Mr Nolan’s smooth brow. ‘I’m afraid the rifle’s not here, doc. Billy came yesterday to get it. Must have been around four o’clock. He said he was so broke he was going to have to sell it at King’s Emporium. Only thing was, when he headed out, he didn’t head toward King’s. He went the other way. Strange. Because I know he’s always anxious to get his hand on another dollar or two. Didn’t see him come back this way till this morning. He passed by while I was opening the range. I’m out at the door and I say howdy to him, and he’s got the rifle in his hand, only it’s in a bag, and he never carries it in a bag.’

  ‘And he was going to King’s this time?’

  ‘That’s what he said. Guess last night he couldn’t bear to part with it. Your grandfather’s rifle has got to have some sentimental value.’

  Or maybe Billy just needed it to kill Purcell last night.

  As King’s Emporium of New and Used Merchandise was only three blocks away from the range on Hooper Avenue, I deferred my visit to the Welland Street Club and headed over there instead.

  The emporium was in the heart of Fairfield’s poorer section, a district known as Hoopertown. No fine carriages or pretty women with parasols here. That was for Cherry Hill. In Hoopertown, one found a more unornamented species of humanity. A woman in rags was selling chestnuts from an open brazier. A man lay passed out in a doorway, his bowler having fallen from his head, an empty whisky bottle by his side. Two children picked through a midden down a back alley.

  Inside King’s Emporium, I walked past old musical instruments, jewellery, racks of used clothing, farm implements, and leather goods, all of it crammed together in such chaos it was a wonder the owner and proprietor, Anthony King, could find anything at all. Amid all this junk I was surprised that I could even find Anthony King.

  But find him I did, at the rear of the shop.

  He was a man with a bald pate and a rim of thin brown hair running from ear to ear around the back of his head. He was sitting on a stool behind a sales counter. His stomach, despite his relatively thin frame, was substantially rounded and solid. He wore a jeweller’s loupe in his left eye and was holding a man’s ring up for inspection. He was mumbling to himself. He had a cup of tea and a piece of pound cake at his elbow. As I approached, a mouse came out from under some papers, darted on to the plate
, absconded with a choice crumb, and ran back under the papers, all without Mr King’s notice.

  I cleared my throat to get his attention.

  He looked up, the loupe still in his eye. He removed it, the optical device leaving a red circle, and blinked. He looked at the tarnished brass badge on my lapel with a sudden drooping of his lips, as if he found unannounced visits by the local constabulary a source of acute dyspepsia.

  ‘Afternoon, doc. I wasn’t expecting any more customers this late in the day. What’s your pleasure? Back for more glassware?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, Mr King, I’m here on sheriff’s business. You may have heard there was a murder in front of the Grand Hotel last night.’

  He nodded. ‘Poor Mr Purcell. He was such an able businessman.’

  I leaned my hands against the counter. ‘Right now, our suspicions point toward Billy Fray, the blacksmith’s son.’

  This gave him reason to pause for several seconds. At last he said, ‘Billy Fray, Billy Fray,’ as if he wasn’t sure who I was talking about.

  ‘We have it on reasonable authority that he visited your establishment, most probably this morning.’

  Mr King looked away, his eyes alighting on a dented sousaphone on the floor. With some equivocation, he said, ‘You have to understand, doc, I don’t keep an official log of who actually comes in and out of my shop. I wish I could recall. I surely do. It being so close to Christmas, I’ve had so many customers lately. I can’t keep track of them all. We literally have throngs of them.’

  I glanced around the emporium – not a throng in sight – and turned back to Mr King. ‘I fully understand that the emporium is a dynamo of commerce, Mr King, but if you could carefully examine your memory, I’m sure you’ll recall if Billy Fray was here or not. In aid of your recall, I can tell you that the young man may have brought in a rifle.’

  King’s head jerked upward as if he had just been poked in the ribs. ‘A rifle, you say.’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘We get so many rifles, doc. I’ve got enough rifles to arm a militia. By the way, if you ever want to trade up your Army Colt, let me know.’